Thursday, January 12, 2012

Earlier this week, I reported on the persistent noise phenomena heard throughout Costa Rica, a continuance of a series of invasive and pervasive vibrational sound heard across the globe. The latest entry in this mystery, comes out of Knox County in the state of Tennessee.

Dozens of people in Knox County woke up to some rumbling this morning and investigators are still working to figure out what it was. Dozens of calls flooded central dispatch at about 1:15am, mostly from two neighborhoods off Northshore Drive in West Knoxville; Admiral's Landing and Northshore Landing.

Many people tell us they woke up to loud rumbling and thought there were animals or prowlers in their basements or attics. Others thought there was some sort of explosion shaking the ground. J.R. Andrews lives in Admiral's Landing and says it woke his entire family up and they all ran outside to see what was going on.

"Half of our neighborhood had come outside and there was these constant shakes in the ground, constant thud. It felt like some type of missile attack," he said. "It wasn't an earthquake, I've been through an earthquake." KUB not reporting any problems in the area and so far, there has been no reports of a possible earthquake. - Volunteer TV.

This strange phenomena was recently heard in the same state, in December, last year. An eye-witness filed the following report and video to Youtube.

This strange sound went on for about an hour. It sounded like a jet hovering over my neighbors pasture. It was lightly raining but no wind nor thunderstorms in the area. Just a light drizzle. At times, it was so loud that it was hard to hear each other talk. After about an hour it just suddenly stopped. I have no idea what was making the sound. - Jerpal1966.

The more astronomers look for other worlds, the more they find that it is a crowded and crazy cosmos. They think planets easily outnumber stars in our galaxy and they are even finding them in the strangest of places. And they have only begun to count.

Three studies released Wednesday, in the journal Nature and at the American Astronomical Society's conference in Austin, Texas, demonstrate an extrasolar real estate boom. One study shows that in our Milky Way, most stars have planets. And since there are a lot of stars in our galaxy - about 100 billion - that means a lot of planets. "We're finding an exciting potpourri of things we didn't even think could exist," said Harvard University astronomer Lisa Kaltenegger, including planets that mirror "Star Wars" Luke Skywalker's home planet with twin suns and a mini-star system with a dwarf sun and shrunken planets. "We're awash in planets where 17 years ago we weren't even sure there were planets" outside our solar system, said Kaltenegger, who wasn't involved in the new research. Astronomers are finding other worlds using three different techniques and peering through telescopes in space and on the ground.

Confirmed planets outside our solar system - called exoplanets - now number well over 700, still-to-be-confirmed ones are in the thousands. NASA's new Kepler planet-hunting telescope in space is discovering exoplanets that are in a zone friendly to life and detecting planets as small as Earth or even tinier. That is moving the field of looking for some kind of life outside Earth from science fiction toward plain science. One study in Nature this week figures that the Milky Way averages at least 1.6 large planets per star. And that is likely a dramatic underestimate. That study is based on only one intricate and time-consuming method of planet hunting that uses several South American, African and Australian telescopes. Astronomers look for increases in brightness of distant stars that indicate planets between Earth and that pulsating star. That technique usually finds only bigger planets and is good at finding those further away from their stars, sort of like our Saturn or Uranus.

Kepler and a different ground-based telescope technique are finding planets closer to their stars. Putting those methods together, the number of worlds in our galaxy is probably much closer to two or more planets per star, said the Nature study author Arnaud Cassan of the Astrophysical Institute in Paris. Dan Werthimer, chief scientist at the University of California Berkeley's search for extraterrestrial intelligence program and who wasn't part of the studies, was thrilled: "It's great to know that there are planets out there that we can point our telescopes at." Kepler also found three rocky planets - tinier than Earth - that are circling a dwarf star that itself is only a bit bigger than Jupiter. They are so close to their small star that they are too hot for life. "It's like you took your shrink ray gun and you set it to seven times smaller and zap the planetary system," said California Institute of Technology astronomer John Johnson, co-author of the study presented Wednesday at the astronomy conference. Because it is so hard to see these size planets, they must be pretty plentiful, Johnson said. "It's kind of like cockroaches. If you see one, then there are dozens hiding."

It's not just the number or size of planets, but where they are found. Scientists once thought systems with two stars were just too chaotic to have planets nearby. But so far, astronomers have found three different systems where planets have two suns, something that a few years ago seemed like purely "Star Wars" movie magic. "Nature must like to form planets because it's forming them in places that are kind of difficult to do," said San Diego State University astronomy professor William Welsh, who wrote a study about planets with two stars that's also published in the journal Nature. The gravity of two stars makes the area near them unstable, Welsh said. So astronomers thought that if a planet formed in that area, it would be torn apart. Late last year, Kepler telescope found one system with two stars. It was considered a freak. Then Welsh used Kepler to find two more. Now Welsh figures such planetary systems, while not common, are not rare either. "It just feels like it's inevitable that Kepler is going to come up with a habitable Earth-sized planet in the next couple ofÂ years," Caltech's Johnson said. - MSNBC.

Meanwhile, Astronomers using data from NASA's Kepler mission have discovered the three smallest planets yet detected orbiting a star beyond our sun. The planets orbit a single star, called KOI-961, and are 0.78, 0.73 and 0.57 times the radius of Earth. The smallest is about the size of Mars.

"This is the tiniest solar system found so far," said John Johnson, the principal investigator of the research from NASA's Exoplanet Science Institute at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. "It's actually more similar to Jupiter and its moons in scale than any other planetary system. The discovery is further proof of the diversity of planetary systems in our galaxy." All three planets are thought to be rocky like Earth, but orbit close to their star. That makes them too hot to be in the habitable zone, which is the region where liquid water could exist. Of the more than 700 planets confirmed to orbit other stars -- called exoplanets -- only a handful are known to be rocky. "Astronomers are just beginning to confirm thousands of planet candidates uncovered by Kepler so far," said Doug Hudgins, Kepler program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington." Finding one as small as Mars is amazing, and hints that there may be a bounty of rocky planets all around us."

Kepler searches for planets by continuously monitoring more than 150,000 stars, looking for telltale dips in their brightness caused by crossing, or transiting, planets. At least three transits are required to verify a signal as a planet. Follow-up observations from ground-based telescopes also are needed to confirm the discoveries. The latest discovery comes from a team led by astronomers at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. The team used data publicly released by the Kepler mission, along with follow-up observations from the Palomar Observatory, near San Diego, and the W.M. Keck Observatory atop Mauna Kea in Hawaii. Their measurements dramatically revised the sizes of the planets from what originally was estimated. The three planets are very close to their star, taking less than two days to orbit around it. The KOI-961 star is a red dwarf with a diameter one-sixth that of our sun, making it just 70 percent bigger than Jupiter. Red dwarfs are the most common kind of star in our Milky Way galaxy. The discovery of three rocky planets around one red dwarf suggests that the galaxy could be teeming with similar rocky planets. "These types of systems could be ubiquitous in the universe," said Phil Muirhead, lead author of the new study from Caltech. "This is a really exciting time for planet hunters." - NASA.

In 2011, Mount Sakurajima, an active volcano in southwestern Japan, exploded 996 times. The most since record keeping began in 1955.

The latest video images and reports from the Japan Meteorological Agency indicates that we are on track to equal or surpassed last year's total, as there have been 28 new eruptions in just the past three days. Two eruptions were observed at the Minamidake vent, at about 1,000 meters elevation, the Kagoshima Meteorological Observatory said. The observatory warned the volcano in the middle of Kagoshima Prefecture is becoming increasingly active.

Mt. Sakurajima erupted 548 times in 2009 and 896 times in 2010, breaking the previous record of 474 times in 1985 for three consecutive years through 2011.

The Japan Meteorological Agency defines an explosive eruption as one accompanied by an explosive release of gas, ash or rock.

Here is the most recent report from the Weekly Volcanic Activity Report from the Smithsonian's Global Volcanism Program and the US Geological Survey's Volcano Hazards Program:

Based on information from JMA, the Tokyo VAAC reported that during 4-10 January explosions from Sakura-jima produced plumes that rose to altitudes of 1.5-2.7 km (5,000-9,000 ft) a.s.l. and drifted NE, E, SE, and S. On 7 January an ash plume rose to an altitude 2.7 km (9,000 ft) a.s.l. and drifted SE, then later dissipated. Geologic Summary. Sakura-jima, one of Japan's most active volcanoes, is a post-caldera cone of the Aira caldera at the northern half of Kagoshima Bay. Eruption of the voluminous Ito pyroclastic flow was associated with the formation of the 17 x 23-km-wide Aira caldera about 22,000 years ago. The construction of Sakura-jima began about 13,000 years ago and built an island that was finally joined to the Osumi Peninsula during the major explosive and effusive eruption of 1914. Activity at the Kita-dake summit cone ended about 4,850 years ago, after which eruptions took place at Minami-dake. Frequent historical eruptions, recorded since the 8th century, have deposited ash on Kagoshima, one of Kyushu's largest cities, located across Kagoshima Bay only 8 km from the summit. The largest historical eruption took place during 1471-76.

Twelve Americans have been reported infected with a mutating and now possibly human-to-human transmitted form of the H1N1 Swine Flu virus called H3N2v.

An investigation undertaken by the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention found that human infections of these viruses followed contact with swine as well as through 'limited human-to-human transmission.' 'While there is no evidence that sustained human-to-human transmission is occurring, all influenza viruses have the capacity to change and it's possible that this virus may become widespread,' the CDC explained through their website.

According to the report presented by the CDC, the virus has been found in five states sprawled around the East Coast and Midwest since August of 2011, though in a late November report they listed the first as being in July. Two of the 12 reported have been in Indiana, three in Iowa, two in Maine, three in Pennsylvania, and two in West Virginia. Out of 10 diagnosed with the virus excluding West Virginia's two victims - reported in the CDC's November report - three were hospitalized. The CDC stated that the severity in illness following diagnosis with the virus has been found similar to previous flu virus infections with mild illness.

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention has announced 12 Americans falling ill to a
new flu strain with the same 'matrix gene segment' found in the previous H1N1 virus shown.

In a report released by the CDC on November 22, the three Iowa victims were identified as three children, explained as all having the virus with the same 'matrix gene segment' that was in the previous H1N1 virus. 'Prior to the three cases in Iowa, most human infections with this virus were associated with exposure to swine,' the CDC's report reads. 'In Iowa, however, no swine exposure has been identified. At this time, it appears that unsustainable human-to-human transmission may have occurred,' it explains. While those three children, who were described as in close contact to one another, recovered from the virus, the CDC cautioned in their later 2011 report that, 'These viruses are substantially different from human influenza A (H3N2) viruses, so the seasonal vaccine is expected to provide limited cross-protection among adults and no protection to children.' The swine flu strain's catastrophic impact deemed it a pandemic by the World Health Organization. With the H1N1 virus, most of those hospitalized were younger adults and children rather than the elderly. - Daily Mail.

It seems that the series of phenomena, involving a persistent and
invasive vibration or noise, continues pervasively. Just what is it?
Planetary tremors? Geological upheavals? Precursor to an imminent
disaster? Motions and waves suggesting an imminent pole shift?
Supernatural occurrences? The latest case comes out of Costa Rica,
where the sounds that was heard throughout last year, has intensified
significantly, propagating across the cities, towns and neighborhoods.

Is it the mysterious sound of the so-called coming Apocalypse? Some think that the mysterious sound heard in Costa Rica at around 12:30am this morning is exactly that.

Ronny Quintero, a seismologist said the event should be studied at the exact time and location of the anomalies to determine with certainty that there was no earthquake. He added that depending on the location of those who claim they heard the rumble or ”The Hum” it is easy to dismiss the possibility of tectonic movements.

This news has rattled the social web whereas Costa Ricans and the world over are scrambling to figure out what this mysterious sound could have been. Authorities have yet to comment on the subject although OVSICORI, the Costa Rica Volcanologist and Seismologist Organization is saying there is no Earth movements recorded at the time of the strange sound.

Here is a YouTube video showing how it sounded. The second video was filmed in Kiev, Ukraine where the sound has also appeared.

It is important to note that this is not the wind nor was it filmed anywhere near the ocean. The sound was heard throughout the entire country from Heredia to Perez Zeledon. - Costa Rica News.

When you consider the millions of words published as "news" about global warming, a massive hoax based on the theory that an increase in the Earth's levels of carbon dioxide (CO2), a minor atmospheric gas (0.0380%), it boggles the mind that reporters for a respected newswire, Reuters, would still be writing utter rubbish about it.

Just as the "news" about global warming was demolished in 2009 and again in 2011 with the leaked emails of the conspirators behind the fictions of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the main agency behind the hoax, on January 9, Nina Chesney of Reuters London Bureau, reported about a paper in the journal, Nature Geoscience, that the "Next Ice Age not likely before 1,500 years: study." The paper claimed that "Concentrations of the main gases blamed for global warming reached record levels in 2010 and will linger in the atmosphere for decades even if the world stopped pumping out emissions today, according to the U.N.'s weather agency."

The U.N. does not have a "weather agency." It has a propaganda agency devoted in its own words to "climate." The two are not the same. Weather is what is occurring right now and climate is the measurement of trends over centuries. The authors of the paper based their ice age predictions on "variations in the earth's orbit and rock samples" and was "conducted by academics at Cambridge University, University College London, the University of Florida, and Norway's University of Bergen. These people have to justify their salaries and, just like all the other academics who jumped on board the global warming wagon, they are likely among the last holdouts making claims about CO2. Their conclusions are absurd. This isn't science. It's the dying gasp of those trying desperately to keep the global warming hoax alive.

The science - the known facts - aren't that difficult to understand. Climatologists have established that, over the 4.5 billion years of the Earth's existence, ice ages have had interglacial periods that averaged about 11,500 years. Then the Earth lapses into a period of extreme cold. The Earth is 11,500 years since the end of the last major ice age. We are due the onset of the next ice age any day now and when it begins, it will come on so fast that all the manmade CO2 will have no effect whatever. Moreover, CO2 shows up in the atmosphere in a greater quantity AFTER a major climatic event, not before.

There have been periods when there was much more CO2 in the atmosphere; the age of the dinosaurs comes to mind. Indeed, when the last big ice age struck, mammoths were literally frozen in place, waiting to be discovered and dug up centuries later, so intact scientists were able to determine what their last meal was! I count myself fortunate to have Robert W. Felix, perhaps the world's leading authority on ice ages, as my friend. I recommend you visit this website and benefit from the facts. You can also read Not by Fire, but by Ice, his book on the topic of ice ages.

In a post on his website regarding the latest nonsense about a distant ice age, Felix cites the fact that Argentina's Perito Moreno is growing and it is in the southern hemisphere. In addition, glaciers are growing in India, in the Rockies, in California and Washington State. Do you believe that CO2 will stop this growth or have the slightest affect on it? The assertion that "an increase in ice-sheet volume would not be possible" is a lie. Just like all the other lies published about global warming by the IPCC and all the others that sought to profit from the hoax. Do not believe these claims. The Earth has been in a perfectly natural cooling trend since 1998. We are at the end of the most recent interglacial period and could tip into a new ice age tomorrow. - FNF.

The weather bureau says an extreme cold front has broken a series of low temperature records for Canberra, Goulburn and the Snowy Mountains.

The southern tablelands and Victoria's Alpine region have also been hit by the summer chill. A rapidly moving cold front from Antarctica moved though Tasmania, Victoria, New South Wales and the ACT yesterday. The icy and changeable weather delivered a low of -4 degrees Celsius and a dusting of snow to the Snowy Mountains.

Forecaster Sean Carson says the snow is unseasonable, but not rare. "In fact, it was only three to four years ago they had a 20cm centimetre fall in January," he said. In Canberra, the mercury dropped to 1.6C, eclipsing the record of 1.8C set in 1956. Goulburn experienced -0.1C, beating the previous record January low of 1.4C. The front has now moved east over the Tasman Sea. - ABC Australia.